


There are at Least Ten Ways We Could do This but One Seems Just Fine

by imperfectkreis



Series: Nehn Adaar [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Sex, First Time, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 00:52:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4543875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nehn Adaar doesn't consider himself a virgin, not really. He wants Bull to stop treating him like one. Well, maybe a little bit is okay. Just at the end of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There are at Least Ten Ways We Could do This but One Seems Just Fine

The first time Bull takes him, it is not quite as Nehn expected.

By this point, he's sucked Bull's cock dozens of times. He doesn't even register it anymore, dropping to his knees once they stumble through his chamber door. Nehn kneels right there on the floor, his robes cushioning his knees and works open Bull's breeches. Oh, oh, and Bull is always long, hard, and wanting. At least the first time they have each other after a few days too cramped with meetings and missions for this. As the evening drags, so does Bull. He doesn't last as long as Nehn. Two rounds, three on a good night. He'll laugh and say he is no longer young. Nehn argues he is not young either. Bull only smiles in return.

Nehn is a hero, at least, that is what they tell him at Skyhold. And Cassandra isn't Cassandra, anymore. She's Divine Victoria I, resplendent and beautiful on the Sunburst Throne. And the first time Nehn sees her in her vestments, he is glad he is only grows hard for men. Because it does not matter that he is Herald of Andraste, he is still Vashoth. So, he cannot have her, defile her. And this way he is not haunted by images of the Divine spread before him like a gift he can no longer open.

He no longer asks for the Maker's forgiveness for being Gray. Maybe he should. 

Bull pulls at Nehn's braided hair as he sucks, hollow cheeked, saliva wet. Nehn wishes Bull would talk, make him feel like this is bad instead of wonderful. But if Nehn brings it up again it'll be an endless cycle about how Nehn shouldn't be ashamed of his desires. "They are normal, Kadan. It is not shameful to enjoy men, Kadan. Or submission, Kadan."

Nehn wants to rip out Bulls tongue when he gets like that. "Kadan, Kadan, Kadan." But Bull doesn't understand that he's speaking a language where the vocabulary starts and ends with Nehn's lips stitched closed. 

Bull comes back that he'll shame Nehn right well once he's learned to love himself, not before. Like he's some blasted expert in self worth.

So, for the moment Nehn contents himself with making out the pattern of the mortar between the stones as the hollow lines cut into his ill-protected knees. There's the salt and bitter on Nehn's tongue as Bull swells, comes. Nehn palms his erection through his robes, whining and imagining fates that will make him vomit if he weren't so aroused. Trussed up, violated, ruined. Maker, he wants these things.

Bull takes Nehn's chin between his thumb and fingers. He tells Nehn has done a good job, so good, while he watches Nehn's throat bob when he swallows. Nehn opens his mouth lewdly, showing Bull it's all gone. That makes Bull smile, not as wickedly as Nehn aches for.

Grabbing Nehn by the back of his now-soiled robes, Bull hikes up his smaller partner. His lips pin first, licking away the lingering taste of cum in Nehn's mouth, filling him instead with a fluttering sense of lightness in his chest. That void of love that Bull keeps threatening to fill, just as soon as he finds a piece that is the right size. None will be perfect though.

He snatches at Nehn's wandering hands, halting the trace of patterns over skin, scar, ink, refusing to settle. Bull takes those hands and pins them above Nehn's head with one palm.

And oh, there it is. That feeling of impossible smallness that makes Nehn forget he is Gray. He wants to forget that he is dark and huge with horns and hands like dinner plates. Bull's massive scale allows for a blissed out moment where this isn't his body. It's not!

"Ngh, Bull." He barely finds the air to speak. He must use his precious words with care. There are so few of them. "Fuck me, please." 

He doesn't mean it. Well, he does mean it. That closeness of Bull wrapped around him, stinging at the corners of his eyes, hovering over his cock. So he does mean that he wants to get fucked, what he doesn't mean to do is to use up his limited words begging for it.

Because what he wants to say is "Bull, Bull, let me forget who I am. Because I'd rather be small, be beautiful. Like the elves my parents named me after because it's hard, so terribly hard being myself. And you don't know, Bull, not really, because you grew up being handsome, wanted in the abstract way one could want under the Qun. Even after leaving Par Vollen, you knew."

But Nehn never knew. He has no frame of reference, other than beautiful elven men in the alienage married beautiful elven women. And so Nehn wanted, oh he wanted.

"Kadan, you're not sure," Bull presses his words back against Nehn's tongue, smothering out his protests. "I told you, I will earn it."

Earn it. Nehn isn't sure what that means anymore. They fight together, eat together, share a bed at Skyhold and a cramped tent when away. Bull tells him fantastic stories that he still can't quite believe. Because Nehn was once a mercenary too and his stories are never quite as detailed. Bull says that's because he's used to seeing the action from the back row, instead of all up-close-personal-blood-and-guts sort of performance art.

And that's what it is, really. This strange idea Bull's got like Nehn's made of glass. His heart, not his body. Bull might still grab him with thick fingers and slam him against the wall, lash him with his tongue, or spank his upturned ass. That's all well and good because Nehn isn't slight. But he's still thinking of Nehn as a watcher, not a participant.

"Yes, Bull," he hisses, "do it. I'm tired of waiting." He grinds his thigh between both of Bull's enjoying how his is smaller, leaner. The motion causes his robes to hike up, just a little. Nothing more than a show of calves that somehow still seems vulgar. "What do I have to do to make you say yes?"

"Kadan-"

"No," Nehn interrupts. He tries to do it calmly, so Bull won't know that he's always hearing another word in place of the endearment. "Use my name, please."

Bull's eyes go a little wide and Nehn isn't sure if it's because of his sudden interjection or because his hand is working at Bull's cock trying to get him hard again so he can take him. He tries to coax it, make it warm, show how much he wants it. 

"Your name sounds funny in my mouth."

Nehn freezes, and for the first time realizes he's not the only one caught in the tear between worlds. Bull may have been fine before, walking among humans and elves, with his spy-games and compartmentalization. But he's not fine now. Nehn made it not-fine when the stars of the dreadnaught exploded over the Waking Sea.

"You mean it's funny with my face." Nehn pushes him away, though his fingers thread through the buckles at Bull's chest. In truth, it's not much of a deterrent, Bull is that much stronger that he could rip Nehn's joints out of their sockets. Take his digits with him and beat a hasty retreat from Nehn and all his complications. Nehn who is not-fine.

Bull frowns. "Something like that."

"We're not the same, we won't be."

"We're not supposed to be." Bull's hand is against his face. But it's so cloying that Nehn wants to rip it away. That would mean letting go. So he lets Bull linger.

"Why won't you take me? You want to, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Bull exhales heavy, his chest pressing up against Nehn's fingers. "Wouldn't be here every night if I didn't."

"Right," Nehn pulls at Bull's buckles, not with enough strength to move him, but enough to make the leather strain. "You'd be balls deep in the tavern-woman."

Bull's smile is disarming, it always is. "Can't say for sure. She might be bored with me by now. I gotta lot of tricks, but I'm still just one pony."

Nehn wrinkles his nose. "That's, I don't know."

"See, Nehn. You're not ready for this, not yet." Bull leans forward to kiss Nehn. At the temple first, then his lips. Nehn's curled hand remains between them, a rock against their chests. "As for what you can do to change my mind. We could love each other. Because that is what you need."

"Ah," he bites gently at Bull's lip. It's a little puffy now from the kissing, but not nearly as much as Nehn's. He knows from seeing himself in the glass how flushed and swollen he becomes while sucking Bull. Bull put him on his knees once before the full length mirror, turned sideways so when Nehn canted his eyes he could see the picture they made. Something no artist would ever paint. There are paintings available for purchase in Val Royeaux of Seeker Pentaghast, Commander Rutherford, First Enchanter Vivienne, Sister Leliana, Ambassador Montilyet. But not of Inquisitor Adaar. Not of The Iron Bull.

"So you don't, you don't love me, then?"

"Other way round, Nehn."

And it douses him like ice water, like cold steel against his bones that won't warm. Because he's tried. Maker, he's tried. But it hasn't worked. Nehn knows love is real because his mother had given up on a world where her hands were compelled to sew shut the mouths of men. And she found hope again in a voice whispered between the threads.

"What if I can't? What if I can't ever love you?" It's an obscene question because their clothes are a mess and Nehn has cum on his lips and these seem like questions for a lifetime ago. No, wait, a different lifetime without the history of their fathers behind them.

Bull doesn't know who his father is.

Nehn breathes.

"Then we can keep on with this," Bull waves his hands to nothing at all. "Or we can stop and you can try to find someone you can love, Ka- Nehn."

"No," Nehn is firm in his assessment. He kisses Bull again with the kind of ferocity that wells up inside someone certain of themselves. Nehn is not that person. Nehn doesn't know what sort of person he is. "You don't know better than me. You can't know me better than I know myself."

He shoves Bull backwards, though neither of them lose their footing. Nehn's hands try to be in many places at the same time, coaxing and pulsing as they move from the wall to the bed. His voice is small, but clear. 

"I don't have time for this." Nehn grits his teeth, thinking of leather in his bite. He likes his mouth full but his voice intact. "What if I die tomorrow? What if you die today?" His fingers work the buckles at Bull's chest. He already knows how easy his robes part under Bull's touch. They're still fighting, sort of. Is that what this is? But he's coming undone too.

Nehn reverses their positions so it's his back against the mattress, so it's Bull's hips between his thighs. This they have done as well. Bull thrusting between Nehn's legs, rutting at the curve of his ass without penetrating. A test of friction, resistance, control.

But he doesn't wish to resist, not this time. He doesn't want Bull to resist either. To hold back from fucking Nehn into the mattress, to hold him down and take him.

Nehn pants between harsh gasps, "wreck me, wreck me, now, now, now."

Bull grunts wordlessly in the crook of Nehn's neck. He scratches blunt nails along Nehn's sides. Makes his skin run hot and cold. Feels like his flesh could peel up and away from Nehn's bones. He likes it.

"You have to be sure." It's Bull who sounds unsure of himself. Walking along glass that is soon to shatter.

"Sure," Nehn presses the word up, letting it escape into the air. "Sure."

Bull reaches over him, fishing through the drawers at Nehn's bedside for the vial of oil they both knows lies there. Nehn uses it to slick his own cock when he touches himself. He curls his fingers around his shaft, thinking of all the vile things he should not. Thinks about coming apart, torn by anonymous hands in all directions.

But the fingers at his entrance are not anonymous. They're Bull's fingers, scarred and coarse. Nehn knows them at other points along his body. He recognizes the knuckle as it slips into him, the knot of it as it tugs.

Bull opens him, inches at a time. Because Nehn is not delicate. He's coarse too, though he loathes to admit it. He's muscle, bone, Gray. He's nothing like Bull, but they share so much between them. Bull breathes into him as they kiss and the pace quickens. It's easy for Bull, must be, to find the motions to make Nehn writhe. 

"Okay, Nehn, are you ready? Are you sure?" Bull's cock is hot against his leg, already slick with oil. Nehn doesn't look. He's worried if he does, he'll change his mind. If he hesitates, Bull might change his mind too.

"Go."

Nehn wishes he were delicate. Nehn wishes he were small. Wishes he were anything but this. Because Bull fits. He slides into him smoothly. Nehn is obliterated at the simplicity of it. He had expected pain, a burn. But the fact Bull fits is all the more humiliating. Nehn breathes sharp, tells himself he wanted this. Wants this.

"Move, Bull. Please."

Bull grunts, snapping his hips back before thrusting forward. He grabs Nehn's legs and manipulates him easily, tossing Nehn’s calves onto his shoulders. They try to position themselves together. But the bed, large as it is, was long-ago sized for humans and elves. While they fit together, the bed does not fit them.

Nehn bites the inside of his cheek to keep quiet, though there is no one to hear. He turns his head so his horns do not catch against the mattress. Most of all, he pretends Bull is not being exceedingly gentle with him. Because he already knows, as hard as Bull fucks him, as viciously, as primal, it will not be enough.

Every time their eyes catch against each other, blue on blue, Nehn remembers himself. That this is him.

Bull smiles through his exertion, pinching Nehn's nipples, biting his neck until gray turns black. He laughs with a deep satisfaction that makes Nehn smile too, despite everything. Everything around Nehn is warm and solid. Even the air feels like leaves in its thickness. 

Nehn comes from nothing more than the ghosting of his own fingers against his cock and Bull buried inside of him. When he comes, he does cry. His stomach is twisted and heavy. He wishes it were of love. But it's with the concretization of something nearly as important. When he looks into Bull's face contorting with pleasure, Nehn does not hate it. He finds Bull beautiful. In a way, he always has. 

Withdrawing, Bull shakes his head, asks in a quiet voice if Nehn regrets. He does not, absolutely not. A strange thing to articulate, but Nehn tries. "I believe in love. I always will. And now you will too. So, maybe, this was beautiful."

Bull pulls him close. They already know how to lie together in this bed built for humans and elves, so their horns do not stick, so their calves and feet hang off the end just so. They know how to fit into spaces they were never meant to occupy.

Before he falls asleep, Nehn, whose father's lips were full of holes, wonders if he could ever love Bull, who doesn't know who his father is.


End file.
